First Drive: Lamborghini Huracán LP 610-4

Hands-in with the most important Lamborghini ever

Miura, Countach, Murciélago. Bedroom-poster heroes, every one, and the foundations of the Lamborghini legend. The Lamborghini reality as we know it today, however, was built squarely on the Gallardo. Almost half of the 30,000 cars built by Lamborghini since the brand's 1963 founding are that piccolo Lambo. No scissor doors, a smallish footprint, and two pistons short of the classic Bizzarrini layout.

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Assisting those sales numbers was the sheer life span of the thing. The Gallardo was launched in 2003, and didn't it let you know it. In recent years, no amount of paint-and-tape special editions could hide numb ceramic brakes, an absence of adaptive dampers, or a ham-fisted automatic transmission—the latter felt so old you had to remind yourself not to reach over the side of the door for a shift lever.

Consider that when Lamborghini launched the Gallardo (with a paltry 493 hp), Ferrari was still dishing out the 360 Modena. Maranello has since replaced its entry-level sports car not once but twice and is prepping a successor to the current star, the 458 Italia, for a 2015 launch. For the Gallardo's successor, nothing less than a ground-up redesign would be good enough.

And with the Huracán—pronounced Oo-rah-KANN—that's almost what you get. The taut surfaces make for a design that's not as wild as the brand's limited-run Sesto Elemento but tricks you into believing this is a much smaller car than the Gallardo. In fact, it's 6.5 inches longer and an inch wider. The snout is generic Aventador-Gallardo, but move around to the profile, and then the delicious-looking rear quarter, and you can't help but admit designer Filippo Perini nailed this one. Apart from the obvious Aventador influences, there's a clear tip of the hat to Bertone's 1967 Marzal concept. From the side mirrors to the air intakes to the mesh within them, there's more hexagonal detailing here than in your average beehive.

The chassis beneath those aluminum panels is all-new, composed mostly of aluminum but featuring rear firewall and tunnel sections made from carbon fiber. The structure is said to weigh 10 percent less than the Gallardo's and be 50 percent torsionally stiffer. This platform will go to Audi for the next R8, due in 2016, but it already possesses the one major bit of hardware that makes the Huracán so much more desirable than its automated-manual predecessor: a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. Sadly, near-zero demand from Gallardo buyers for that car's thoroughly excellent six-speed manual means you can now have only two pedals.

That transmission bolts to an engine that Lamborghini claims is all-new, but it sounds awfully familiar. Just as "Countach" was a peculiarly Piedmontese expression not known outside the region, so "downsizing" seems to be one not known within it. Forget any notions of smaller, tighter, blown engines (the V8 from the Audi RS6 and Bentley GT, for instance). As with the Gallardo, motive power comes from a 90-degree, 5.2-liter V10. It features the same under-square dimensions—cylinder bore is larger than stroke—as before but now employs a combination of direct and port fuel injection. Within the first few feet, you can feel how much freer-revving this new engine is, and how much punchier. Peak power of 602 hp (610 in metric, hence the name) is up from 543 hp in the last Gallardo, while torque climbs 15 lb-ft, to 413.

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Offsetting a 93-pound increase in dry weight, that extra power slings the four-wheel-drive Huracán to 62 mph in 3.2 seconds, making it 0.2 second faster than the Ferrari 458 Italia but the same amount slower than McLaren's two-wheel-drive, turbocharged 650S. (If you believe their respective manufacturers' numbers.) Big brother Aventador is faster too, getting there in a stated 2.9 seconds. But that's not the whole story. A Lamborghini test driver admitted that on any track too tight for the big guy to effectively use its 691 hp, the Huracán would be at least as quick, if not quicker.

Which is why the Aventador we untrustworthy press hacks were forced to follow on our hot laps at the Ascari Race Resort was blessed with sticky Pirelli Corsa rubber, while we made do with plain old P Zeros.

If you want to circle a track in the shortest time possible, dial up Corsa mode using Lamborghini's new anima, which translates as "soul" but sounds like an Italian corporate bank. It's Sant'Agata's answer to Ferrari's manettino, the small, wheel-mounted switch that lets Ferrari drivers change stability-control and chassis parameters in a single move. Corsa gives the most brutal gearchanges, won't upshift until the engine's at redline, lets you fully deactivate stability control, and sends a large chunk of its torque to the front wheels to haul you out of corners. At the other end of the scale is street-friendly Strada: soft, supple, and perfect for bumbling through city traffic.

Best of the bunch, though, is Sport. While Corsa moves with the stiff, jerky actions of a crack addict getting cranky as his last rock wears off, loose-limbed Sport is far more chill. Instead of throwing a load of torque up front, the center diff keeps the majority at the back axle, letting you load up the 305/30R-20 rear rubber.

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But even in Sport mode, you have to be going like mad to get past the outer shell of polished precision. For all the marketing hype about Lamborghinis being untamable beasts, the Huracán is predictably safe. Brake into an apex or lift off the gas to trim your line, and you can feel how nicely balanced the car is. There are no nasty surprises waiting to bite you, but neither is there anything to make you laugh out loud. The inevitable hard-core Superleggera version will satisfy any hunger for something more animal, but even in this base model, more playfulness wouldn't go amiss.

This isn't peculiar to the Huracán. Ferrari's CEO once expressed his bemusement to me as to why Lamborghini makes it so difficult for the average driver to really get under the skin of its cars. While tech guys at Maranello spend their days working out unfeasibly complicated stability-program algorithms to let ordinary joes safely explore a Ferrari's limits, you can't help feeling that Lamborghini would prefer you not go there. Hell, even Audi, an acknowledged leader in understeer, will deliver more tail-wagging hilarity from the same component set. Not faster, not sharper, but more entertaining. So how about loosening that necktie, Lamborghini?

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The only other criticism can be fixed with software. While BMW, Ferrari, and even Audi let you mix and match your favorite stability, damper, and throttle settings, Lamborghini would prefer you leave everything alone. You can't, for instance, enjoy Strada's fun, rear-biased handling with Corsa's manual gearshift control and stability-control-free handling.

But let's not get bogged down. Let's skip the circuit and get out on the road where the Huracán is much more fun. It's also where you'll experience the real and relevant transformation over the old car. The on-track understeer and lack of easily accessible hoon silliness cease to become an issue when you're surrounded by 140-hp Hondas. Carving through them showcases crisp steering and a response to throttle inputs that McLaren's turbo V8 can't begin to replicate.

The Huracán's V10 doesn't have the McLaren's low-end kick or the frenzied rush to redline of a 458, but it's a monster engine all the same, thrust building steadily until close to the 6500-rpm torque peak, then coming in hard like you've just unleashed the back half of a four-barrel carb on a vintage Detroit V8.

The huge shift paddles feel so good, you'll want to caress them repeatedly, but unlike in the old car, you don't have to in order to make rapid progress. The dual-clutch transmission is fast and smooth, but it also, finally, has an automatic mode worth bothering with. And under light pedal applications, the now-standard ceramic brakes no longer feel like some joker has replaced the pads with wooden door wedges.

The ride is cushier too, thanks to adaptive dampers—though, scandalously, these are optional. Tick the box if you want civility, not because you expect it to transform track handling. The base dampers are tuned to match the sportiest setting on the adjustable shocks. Likewise the dynamic steering, which uses a gearset in the column to vary the rack's ratio. It's intended to make town driving and tight switchbacks easier, not shave tenths from your Ring record.

That doesn't make those options pointless. Far from it. Modern supercars need to be as usable in the city as on that mythical traffic-free mountain pass. Following Ferrari's lead, switches for lights and wipers, the anima controller, and those to configure the stunning LCD instrument cluster are housed within the steering wheel. A second LCD display lives in the dash, above some cool toggle switches and minor controls that clearly come from an Audi, but at least one built this century.

Compared with the Gallardo, Lamborghini worked to open up the Huracán's cabin to make it feel less claustrophobic. It's certainly less oppressive, if no easier to see out of. As for trunk space, there's enough for a small case at the front, supplemented, according to company CEO Stephan Winkelmann, by "whatever your girlfriend can fit between her legs."

These days, the average Italian exotic might have adapted to woo rich Chinese waifs, but the brand message still swaggers down the road like it's 1972.

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